Chapter 1

County Fair/Susan/Wayne

“Which prize do you want?” the middle-aged lady wearing an oversized, soiled, muslin apron asked.
          The question baffled Scot.  “What do you mean?” he asked.
          “You sank four baskets in a row,” she responded nonchalantly.  “You won a prize.”
          “What are my choices?” Scot asked, still bewildered but looking for the wall displaying the cheapest prizes.
          “Anything in the house,” the lady responded as if completely bored with her job.
          Scot looked around the booth.  There were giant Teddy Bears in the brightest, most grotesque colors imaginable.  There were numerous smaller, plastic prizes of every color and shape, mostly of indeterminable use.  There were appliances such as mixers and toasters that a husband could win for his wife.  Scot wasn’t about to carry a giant Teddy Bear around for the rest of the day even though it would be public testament to his outstanding athletic abilities.  Those were for girls to carry around as proof that their man was a macho survivor that could provide for her in the most primitive or desperate conditions.
           Then Scot spied a hunting knife among the smaller items on display. The knife was in a decorated leather case with what appeared to be an ivory handle.  There was no doubt in his mind that this was the only prize for him among hundreds that had both beauty and utility.
          “I’ll take the hunting knife,” he told the lady, half expecting to be told that it was not available as a prize.  She took it down from the wall and handed it to him.  It was heavy.  It was not some cheap toy made of tin and plastic.  The fancy handle appeared to be made of ivory rather than plastic.  Scot’s neighbor Fred Enfield called plastic the capitalist’s gold.  It could be polished and painted any color to be shiny and very appealing.  Then it would break within a couple months and need to be replaced.  It’s the perfect planned obsolescence material, Fred claimed.
          Scot admired his prize for several minutes before he remembered where he was and what he was doing.  Wayne, who stood by silently during the entire exchange, now spoke admiringly of the knife in barely disguised envy.
Wayne, a star basketball player for the Warren Rabbits, a rival high school, had suggested they try the basketball booth feeling certain that he would outperform anyone there that night.  Most of all, he wanted to impress Susan, a blond reserve cheerleader at Scot’s high school who had joined them in their stroll around the fairgrounds.
The basketball competition didn’t go as planned.  The basket rims at the carnival booths are much smaller than regulation baskets.  The balls also are smaller, cheaply constructed and not well balanced.  Scot couldn’t prove it, but he suspected the height of the basket did not conform to National Basketball Association regulations.  Wayne didn’t compensate for the difference until it was too late.  He missed the first two of four basket attempts.  Still, he felt confident that he would score more than anyone else.
“This must be the luckiest day in your life,” Wayne said to Scot.  “I can’t believe you scored four out of four in those small hoops.  How did you manage to do it?  Have you ever played before?”  He knew Scot was not on his high school basketball team.
“A little bit around home,” Scot said modestly, but proudly.  “I have an outdoor basketball court in my back yard.”
“Why aren’t you on the High School team?” Wayne asked. “You seem to be good enough.”
Scot wanted to tell some elaborate tale, including the divine intervention of the gods, to test the gullibility of his friend.  He couldn’t come up with one on the spur of the moment. so he decided to tell the truth.  “I had some geographical barriers that I couldn’t overcome.  I wasn’t even able to try out.  I lived a couple miles outside the city in a rural community and had no way to get home other than the school bus.  It was nearly impossible for me to stay late to practice with the team.  I have no idea how I compared to other players.  We played basketball sometimes in gym class.  I did well there.  The varsity basketball coach saw me play one day and asked why I hadn’t tried out.  I explained my difficulty getting home.  I could ride my bicycle but that would be nearly impossible in the Winter, the basketball season.  He promised to find me a ride.  I never heard from him again.  I must not have been that impressive.”
One of the advantages of life in a rural community is abundant room for a personal basketball court.  Scot’s dad built a court for Scot and his brother.  It was a solid basket on a pole the electric company had discarded.  The pole was sunk several feed into the ground.  Scot and his brother and kids from the neighborhood spent numerous hours playing against each other, or just shooting baskets when no one else was around.
One day when Scot was shooting baskets by himself as he frequently did, he realized that the instant the ball rolled off his finger tips, he knew if it would score or not.  How could that be? How was it possible that anyone could score a basket other than through random chance?  Shouldn’t mathematical geniuses be better at basketball than ill-educated kids from the other side of the track?  It fact, it was just the opposite at his high school.  For a ball to go through a hoop about twice its size from several feet away more often than randomly was a logical mystery to Scot.  Some players rarely missed no matter how far away they were from the basket or if they shot a jump shot, hook shot or foul shot.  Even while moving, they could jump, shoot and have it go in more often than most people could while standing still.  Most had no math abilities, but they could score nearly every time.  One player in a neighboring community rarely missed.  He also was raised in a rural community.  He had access to a farmer’s barn that had a basketball backboard on a vertical beam in the center.  He was able to practice in the Winter as well as in the Summer.
For a basketball to pass through a hoop that is practically parallel to the shooter—regulation calls for the hoop to be ten feet above the ground--the shooter must calculate his distance from the basket, calculate the arc to the basket, calculate the amount of force needed to attain and sustain that arc and distance with no more that an inch or two variance along the entire arc.  Given all those variables and obstacles, it should be a miracle anytime a regulation basketball passes through a regulation hoop.  Logically, most high school and college competitions should end with scores in the single digits, like hockey.  If a basketball shooter stood motionless carefully calculating all the variables necessary to score, each shot would take several minutes.  It doesn’t.  How do all of those calculations take place so quickly and so accurately?  How could a mind that can barely add two and two and have no idea what an arc is, do all those complicated calculations so quickly and accurately?
Early in life, Scot recognized that there is a mysterious self with awesome powers inside all of us.  It is too amazing for mere mortals at our stage of evolution to understand, he decided, but it had something to do with repetition. The answer lies in the construction of the brain according to some of the reading he had done on the subject.  To do those sophisticated calculations so quickly, the brain must bypass the cognitive and analytical sectors that do that kind of calculation for a mathematics, science or engineering student.  The mind must have something like a miniature computer that coordinates and executes all the variables.
Wayne and Scot discussed their personal techniques for playing the game. While there definitely is a best way, variations can be adopted to fit personal weaknesses and emphasize individual strengths. Both, through thousands of repetitions, had internalized the process of launching a ball through the air and landing it in a precise spot limited only by the strength of the person throwing the ball.  Then, performance was superior by enabling the subconscious amygdala to do the calculations.  The amygdala is our ancient animal brain that is responsible for us surviving 600 million years of evolution.  It’s the size of an almond, and follows a simple natural law according to Charles Darwin: preservation and perpetuation of the species.  Being the first part of the brain to receive signals from the five senses, the amygdala is most capable of rapid responses such as jerking a hand away from a hot stove.  It’s natural task no doubt is for survival and reproduction.  It had to move quickly to catch its meal or escape quickly from being a meal.  It also serves as a gateway allowing or restricting information flows to other parts of the brain.
Wayne and Scot never learned this information in any class.  Most, if not all, teachers were unaware of it.  Scot’s repetitions varied slightly from Wayne’s, they discovered in their discussions.  Wayne shot in the general direction of the center of the basket.  Scot picked a precise point in the back of the basket, three inches below the rim.  Consequently, the smaller basket in the carnival booth deflected most of Wayne’s shots until he compensated for the difference.
Wayne‘s goal that day was to impress Susan.  Scot’s goal was to beat Wayne at a game at which Wayne excelled.  Scot got a nice hunting knife he never dreamed of getting.  And he got the girl.
Although she was a cheerleader for basketball and football games, Susan seemed to avoid athletes in her social life.   She preferred the more cerebral type.  She obviously enjoyed Scot’s company and sought it out, but he was uncertain whether or not she wanted a relationship beyond friendship. Consequently, he didn’t pursue a more intimate relationship initially.  Their associations were mostly chance, he believed.
“Will you be around here for a few minutes?”  Susan asked.  I need to run to the restroom.”
“Sure,” Scot responded in his usual polite manner.  Susan had attached herself to them.  That might cramp his style if they encountered a particularly attractive girl, but he would never deliberately do anything to hurt someone’s feelings.
“She is so gorgeous,” Wayne said watching her trim, budding body walking away, in a slightly unnatural gait deliberately acquired after years of rehearsal.  Her long blond hair waved right then left with each footstep in a bodily rhythm that was calculated to draw attention.  “You’re lucky at more than basketball.”
Not sure whether to take the comment as a compliment or insult, Scot stopped himself from admitting he had no intimate relationship with her.  “She’s highly intelligent, too,” he added.  “Probably one of the most perfect, talented girls in our school.   She can do anything she sets her mind to do. I suspect she will be a doctor someday.”
Scot wondered if he had exaggerated too much.  The American Medical Association accepted few women in medical schools.  Their place was nursing.  In fact, minorities of all types were rejected by the AMA.  It was widely accepted that only white males were capable of complex medical procedures.
Susan was walking back toward them.  She raised her long skirt a couple times to prevent it from dragging in the puddles that dotted the unpaved fairground roads.  She seemed to raise the hem far higher than needed in a playful effort to attract attention.  Parts of her pale, white legs flashed ever so slightly as the skirt swung left and right like a metronome in reaction to her sprightly stride.
Scot suddenly saw Susan through Wayne’s eyes.  Everything about her was common.  Her forehead, eyes, nose, lips, chin, ears, all were the common size and shape for someone her size.  Her one flaw was her pale skin.  
Italian girls had the perfect skin color, Scot believed.  There was a large Italian population in the town.  Italians had migrated there for jobs in the steel mills.  They were the second largest ethnic group in the community.  The Italian girls had that smooth, olive skin and long, thick, black hair.  In Scots mind, those were highly desired qualities in his ideal girl friend.
After Wayne’s remarks, Scot felt he should reconsider his judgements about Susan.  She was very attractive, he now noticed.  Everything about her was feminine.  She had a trim waist.  Her breasts appeared to be adequate under her bulky sweater.  He had caught glimpses of her legs several times when she shifted her sitting position, or raised her skirt to avoid dust and mud on the ground.  He had seen her numerous times in her cheerleading uniform, which consisted of a very short skirt revealing her entire legs up to the crotch.  For some reason, flashes of her legs under a long skirt were more alluring.
Scot had one reservation about the Italian girls.  He couldn’t recall seeing a middle-aged or older Italian woman who was not pudgy, wrinkly and short.  So he constantly reassessed his preferences in the opposite sex factoring in short term or long-term relationships and, ultimately of course, marriage.  For now, they would be his center of attention.